Hank Williams Jr. Returning to ‘Monday Night Football’

Hank Williams Jr.'s Monday Night Football anthem will return in 2017. Once again the country legend will shout "Are you ready for some football?" to open the weekly game, now on ESPN.

Six years, it seems, was long enough to bury any bad feelings between the network and Williams Jr. It remains to be seen if that's enough time to quell any controversy.

"I'm sure there'll be some, but I'm not concerned," the network's Stephanie Druley told the Tennessean during a break in the filming of the first open over the weekend. "It was the right time. We discussed it internally and it was just the right time to bring him back."

Williams and his song were pulled during the first weeks of the 2011 football season after he compared President Obama to Hitler. During an interview on Fox and Friends he was asked about the president's round of golf with John Boehner (the Republican Speaker of the House).

After several days of discussion and controversy, the network pulled Williams and a song that had opened the broadcast for over two decades. His fans were very upset with ABC and ESPN. Williams would respond with a song of his own called "Keep the Change."

Now it seems everyone has made amends. During an interview with Nashville's daily newspaper, the singer spoke with rarely-seen enthusiasm about coming back and mentioned nothing of the controversy.

"I never said, 'Are you ready for some football' on stage one time the last five or six years, but I will now," he said. "I’m feeling at home and it’s a real good thing."

He won't be alone in singing the song each week. Two yet-to-be-announced modern contemporary country singers will join him for the weekly song. The official return comes Sept. 11 on ESPN.